


The Archer

by fleurblossom



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Episode 9 spoilers, Not Canon Compliant, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurblossom/pseuds/fleurblossom
Summary: Song Fic based on The Archer by Taylor Swift
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Archer

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 2 am while crying about Ruby Rocks and I think that is very apparent in my writing lmao. My twitter is @gilearslilbeans if you want to hang over there. Thanks to my friend Chris for beta reading this for me!!!

Combat, I'm ready for combat  
I say I don't want that, but what if I do?  
'Cause cruelty wins in the movies  
I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

She thanks the little farmers’ family as they get some cola to allow her to wash her now sticky and sweet dried blood off of her neck. She had dreamed about this all of her life and it’s nothing like she expected. She has so many things she wants to say, why did this happen, why was I shot, why do the army men keep looking at me like that, and most of all, why did nobody tell me it was This Bad. Most of all, she realizes, staring at herself in the reflection of the reddish cola, is that she just wants a hug from her mom. 

Easy they come, easy they go  
I jump from the train, I ride off alone  
I never grew up, it's getting so old  
Help me hold onto you

The locket just lost its glow for the first time in her life. She stops her run back to Castle Candy to take a moment and feel. She looks around and realizes she is in a clearing that she and Jet used to frequent as children when they were running away from Lapain and Theo. They found it when they were 9, an age she looked at fondly but now realizes that it was the halfway point of Jets’ life. Jet her lovely, amazing, stupid, sister is never going to live past 18. She reaches around her neck and feels for the locket, twisting it in her fingers, warming it up to a point that it could feel like the locket is still glowing and beating with each of Jet’s heartbeats. She’s never been without her sister and the sinking feeling hits her gut for the first time that she has outlived her sister. She’s just like her father in that aspect, isn’t she?

I've been the archer  
I've been the prey  
Who could ever leave me, darling?  
But who could stay?  
Dark side, I search for your dark side  
But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?  
And I cut off my nose just to spite my face  
Then I hate my reflection for years and years

The battle of Castle Candy is over and she’s staring at another bucket of reddish cola. She cannot see her reflection, only the one of her dead sister. Her sister who will not live to pull any more pranks on Theo, who will not live to sneak into her room after a bad dream, her sister who will not live to see how her twin will change Comida for the better. She snaps out of it for a second and stares at herself with a new intent. She pulls one of Jet’s daggers from her waist, the dagger that Liam brought back with her cold body, and raises it up to her hair and severs 3 of her once pristine licorice twist outs. She cuts and chops until her hair is unrecognizable, hoping and praying to whatever higher power actually exists in this hellish world that this will stop her from seeing Jet whenever she looks at herself. (the gods laugh)

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost  
The room is on fire, invisible smoke  
And all of my heroes die all alone  
Help me hold onto you  
I've been the archer,  
I've been the prey  
Screaming, who could ever leave me, darling?  
But who could stay?  
(I see right through me, I see right through me)

She wakes up from another nightmare of brown chocolate splattering across the delicate pattern of the stained glass window. Lapain will never truly know how much she learned from him until it was too late. She reaches out for someone she knows is not there, but is still disappointed when she feels nothing but the cold ground beneath her hand. She lays back down not caring that she still feels like she’s suffocating, that she’s drowning, that she’s not okay. She knows the only thing that will temporarily fix what she is feeling right now are hugs from ghosts. At least Jet had Liam with her when she went, Lapain was lucky to have Preston, Mom only had Calroy.

'Cause they see right through me  
They see right through me  
They see right through  
Can you see right through me?  
They see right through  
They see right through me  
I see right through me  
I see right through me  
All the king's horses, all the king's men  
Couldn't put me together again  
'Cause all of my enemies started out friends  
Help me hold onto you

Calroy hurt. 20 years later it hurt, the day after it happened it hurt, it is hurt so deep she knows she will be feeling it for the rest of her life. The man who had snuck her and Jet their first glass of Cola Wine. “You have to share that and don’t let anybody know you got it from me.” He left with a wink and slipped into the crowd, leaving the girls to merrily sip. Calroy, who would happily accept the hugs given to him after his business trips to Comida and Ceresia. The man who would convince Theo and Lapain to let them have days off and would take them into the wood to tell them stories of monsters and make-believe. He didn’t tell them he was a monster.

I've been the archer  
I've been the prey  
Who could ever leave me, darling?  
But who could stay?  
(I see right through me, I see right through me)  
Who could stay?  
Who could stay?  
Who could stay?  
You could stay  
You could stay  
You  
Combat, I'm ready for combat

After the final battle, her father did not just leave her the title of Ruler of Candia, but also the title Queen Ruby Rocks of Candia, The Unfallen.


End file.
